The gods of Mexico

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 19: In this place he is represented standing before a temple with a bundle of firewood and a rubber ball in his hand. The temple contains implements [269]of war. He is painted red, with the lower part of the face blackened by melted rubber and a black cross, the foot of which rests on a level with his eye. The fillet round his head is a strap set with jewelled disks. On the necklace is seen a blue bird (cotinga, or humming-bird). That part of his face which is not black, and which in the Codex Borgia is painted a red colour like the rest of the body, is on sheet 89 painted yellow, with slender thread-shaped longitudinal stripes of red. On sheet 57 he is seen as in the ninth day-count—red, and with red and black face-painting and flame-coloured hair, with the cotinga bird flying down on the frontal side of the fillet, and with arrow-shaft feathers in the crown. At the nape of the neck can be seen a short crest of red points enclosing three tufts of red feathers, which, perhaps, originate in the xiuhcoatl, or fire-snake worn in the Mexican MSS. proper by the Fire-god on his back as a disguise (cf. Codex Borbonicus). He has here the scorpion and atltlachinolli “spear-throwing and fire” sign, and is seated on a royal throne, with an abundance of food before him, which probably symbolizes wealth. He also wears a breast-ornament of blue turquoise mosaic with golden bells. He sometimes wears the priest’s tobacco-calabash as a sign of wealth or abundance.

Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl.—Sheet 20: He holds the copal bag in one hand and in the other two agave-leaf spikes with flowers (blood) at the upper end. Before the face of the Fire-god we see a sea-snail’s shell, which is, perhaps, symbolic of fire shut up or enclosed in the house. Before him, too, is a vessel with offerings or sacrificial balls. Below is an agave spike with the flower-emblem of blood. Beside it are the symbol of midnight, the eye enveloped in darkness, and a tuft of quetzal-feathers—all symbolic of the midnight penance.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 14: In this codex the representation of the Fire-god is in many respects similar to that in Vaticanus B. The face and body-paint are red. The jewelled fillet is ornamented with the conventional representation of a cotinga bird in the attitude of flying down such as may be [270]observed in the figures allied with the Fire-god, and which is also seen in reliefs at Chichen-Itzà, Yucatan. In the fillet are placed two arrow-shafts, which represent the two wooden fire-disks—an ornament that is called “arrow-wig” or “spear-wig.” Above this is seen a tiara, which broadens as it rises upwards. Xiuhtecutli wears attached to a long pendant necklace a square plate of blue colour, made of turquoise mosaic. In some places he wields the “shooting implement,” the throwing-stick, or the blue throwing-stick, xiuhatlatl, fashioned in the form of a snake. The scorpion is frequently placed beside the god, symbolizing, perhaps, the stinging character of fire.

Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—He holds in one hand the xiuhatlatl, the throwing-stick painted blue, decked with turquoise mosaic and having a figure on the top, probably intended for a snake. In the other hand he has a staff, which at the upper crutch-like end shows an animal’s head, and the lower a snake’s tail-rattles.

Codex Magliabecchiano.—The Fire-god is here seen in a dancing or fighting attitude. The dragon-mask lies behind the neck, and he wears a yellow and red hat resembling an inverted cone, with a serpent motif in front. The face-paint is yellow for the upper part of the face, the mouth-region red and the lower posterior part black. His tunic is white, with a blue sash or centre-piece, and he wears the yellow breast-ornament. In one hand he carries the atlatl, or spear-thrower, and in the other a white, unpainted shield.

Sahagun MS.—Sahagun, describing Xiuhtecutli under his minor name of Ixcoçauhque (“The Yellow-faced”), says that he is painted red and black, and is smeared with indiarubber on lips and chin. He wears a headband set with precious stones and a paper crown with a plume of quetzal-feathers. He carries on his back his fire-snake dress and round his shoulders is slung a band of bark paper. On his feet he wears bells and shells. His shield is ornamented with precious stones, and in one hand he carries an instrument the use of which is apparently divinatory. [271]

A song given by Sahagun has reference to the Fire-god.

Sahagun says of him1:

“He had other names—Ixcozauhqui, ‘Yellow-face,’ and Cuezaltzin, or ‘Flame.’ They called him also Ueueteotl, or ‘Very Old God,’ and they said that the fire was his father. They celebrated his feast at the end of the month called [272]izcalli, and dressed the idol in his robes and ornaments. He wore the robes of a king.”

In the Sahagun Mexican MS. he is described as “the mother of the gods, the father of the gods, who dwells in the navel of the earth, who enters the Turquoise Pyramid … the Old God, the Fire-god.”2

Sahagun3 also alludes to the god in the prayer of the merchants, which says: “Sit still on thy throne, noble Lord, thou that in the navel of the earth hast thy seat, Lord of the Four Quarters.”

In this prayer he is also frequently addressed as “Lord of the With and the By” (the contiguous neighbourhood), “the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of the Surface of the Earth.”

Sahagun in a prayer to Tezcatlipocâ alludes to Xiuhtecutli as “the ancient god, who is father and mother to thyself, and is god of fire, who stands in the midst of flowers, in the midst of the place bounded by four walls, who is covered with shining feathers that are as wings”4; and in another prayer to Tezcatlipocâ, speaks of Xiuhtecutli as “the ancient god, the father of all the gods, the god of fire, who is in the pond of water among turrets surrounded with stones like roses, who is called Xiuhtecutli, who determines, examines, and settles the business and law-suits of the nation and of the common people, as it were washing them with water.”5

Clavigero says of Xiuhtecutli:

“Xiuhtecutli (master of the year and of the grass) was among these nations the god of fire, to whom they likewise gave the name of Ixcozauhqui, which expresses the colour of fire. This god was greatly revered in the Mexican empire. At their dinner they made an offering to him of the first morsel of their food, and the first draught of their beverage, by throwing both into the fire; and burned incense to him at certain times of the day. In honour of him they held two fixed festivals of the most solemn kind, one in the tenth, and another in the eighteenth month; and one movable feast, at which they created the usual magistrates and renewed [273]the ceremony of the investiture of the fiefs of the kingdom. He had a temple in Mexico, and some other palaces.”

Xocohuetzi.—Sahagun’s account of this festival is substantially as follows6:

A great tree of five and twenty fathoms long was cut down and the branches lopped off except a few at the top. The tree was then dragged by ropes into the city, great precautions being taken against damaging it. The women met the procession, giving those who had helped cocoa to drink. The tree, which was called zocotl, was received into the court of a teocalli with acclamation, and there set up in a hole in the ground and allowed to remain for twenty days. On the eve of the festival they lowered the tree gently to the ground by means of ropes and trestles made of beams lashed together. It was dressed until quite smooth, and where the branches had been left, near the top, a cross-beam of five fathoms long was secured by ropes. On the summit of the pole a statue of the god Xiuhtecutli was set, made out of the dough of wild amaranth seeds, and decorated with white papers. To the head of the image were affixed pieces of paper instead of hair, bands of paper crossed the body from each shoulder, on the arms were pieces of paper like wings painted over with figures of sparrow-hawks, a maxtli of paper covered the loins, and a kind of paper garment covered all. Great strips of paper, half a fathom broad and ten fathoms long, floated from the feet of the image, and into his head were stuck three rods with a tamalli, or small cake, on the top of each. Ten ropes were then attached to the middle of the tree, and the structure was reared into an upright position and there secured with great uproar.

Those who had captives to sacrifice came decorated for dancing, the body painted yellow (the colour of the god), and the face vermilion. They wore the red plumes of the parrot arranged to resemble a butterfly, and carried shields [274]covered with white feathers. Each danced side by side with his captive. These had the body painted white, and the face vermilion, save the cheeks, which were black. They were adorned with papers, and they had white feathers on the head and lip-ornaments of feathers. At set of sun the dancing ceased, the captives were shut up in the calpulli and watched by their owners, not being permitted to sleep. About midnight every owner shaved away part of the hair from the scalp of the head of his captive, which, being fastened with red thread to a little tuft of feathers, he put in a small case of cane and attached to the rafters of the house, that everyone might see that he was a valiant man and had taken a captive. The knife with which this shaving was accomplished was known as the claw of the sparrow-hawk. At daybreak the captives were arranged in order in front of the tzompantli, where the skulls of the sacrificed were spitted in rows. A priest walked along the row of captives, taking from them certain little banners that they carried and all their raiment or adornment, which he burnt in a fire. While they stood naked and waiting for death, another priest, carrying in his arms the image of the god Paynal and his ornaments, ran up with this idol to the top of the teocalli known as Tlacacouhcan, where the victims were to die. He descended, then returned to the summit, and as he went up for the second time, the owners took their slaves by the hair and led them to the place called Apetlac, where they left them. The priests who were to perform the sacrifice then descended from the teocalli bearing bags of a narcotic incense called yauhtli (absinthe, wormwood, or mugwort), which they threw by handfuls into the faces of the victims to mitigate their death-agonies. Each captive was then bound hand and foot and carried up to the top of the teocalli. On the summit a great fire burned. Upon this the priests cast the captives, who, when half-roasted, were dragged out with the aid of grappling-hooks and sacrificed by having their hearts torn out. The statue of Paynal was then carried away to its own temple and all returned home. The young men and boys with the women began at midday to dance and to [275]sing in the courtyard of Xiuhtecutli. Suddenly they made in a body for the place where the tree already described had been raised. At a given signal all might attempt to scale the pole to reach the dough image at the top. The first youth at the top seized the idol of dough, took the shield and the arrows, the darts and the tamalis from the head of the statue, then threw the crumbs with the plumes of the image down into the crowd, who fought and scrambled for them. When the successful youth descended from the pole with the weapons of the god, he was received with acclamations and carried up to the teocalli Tlacacouhcan, to receive jewels and a rich mantle which no one else might wear, and the honour of being carried to his house by the priests, amid the music of horns and shells. Then the people seized the ropes fastened to the tree and dragged it down.

Izcalli.—The following is a digest of Sahagun’s description of this festival7:

Another feast of the god of fire was held in the month yzcalli, the eighteenth month; it was called motlaxquiantota, that is to say, “our father the fire roasts his food.” An image of the god of fire was made, by tying a frame of hoops and sticks together and covering them with his ornaments. On the head of the image was placed a mask of turquoise mosaic, banded across with rows of green chalchihuitls. Upon the mask was put a crown fitting to the head below, wide above, and covered with rich plumage. A wig of reddish hair was attached to this crown so that the locks flowed from below it, behind and around the mask. A robe of feathers covered the front of the image and fell over the ground before the feet. The back of the image was probably left unadorned and was concealed by a throne covered with a jaguar-skin. Before this statue new fire was made at midnight with the fire-stick. The spark obtained was put on the hearth and a fire lit. At break of day boys and youths came with game and fish that they had captured on the previous day. Walking round the fire, they gave it to certain old men that stood there, who, taking it, threw it into the [276]flames before the god, giving the youths in return certain tamalis made for this purpose by the women. To eat these tamalis it was necessary to strip off the maize-leaves in which they had been wrapped and cooked; these leaves were not thrown into the fire, but were all put together and thrown into water. After this all the old men of the quarter in which the fire was drank octli and sang before the image of Xiuhtecutli till night. This was the tenth day of the month, and completed that part of the feast which was called vauquitamal­qualiztli.

On the twentieth and last day of the month was made another statue of the Fire-god, on a frame of sticks and hoops. They placed on the head a mask with a ground of mosaic with small pieces of the shell called tapaztli, composed below the mouth of black stones, banded across the nostrils with black stones of another sort, and the cheeks made of a still different stone called tezcapuchtli. As in the previous case, there was a crown on this mask, and over all and over the body of the image costly and beautiful decorations of feather-work. Before the throne on which this statue sat there was a fire, and the youths offered game to and received cakes from the old men with various ceremonies, the day closing with the drinking of octli by the old people, though not to the point of intoxication.

The festivals of this month were usually without human sacrifices, but every fourth year was an exception to this. In such a year, on the twentieth and last day of the month, men and women were slain as images of the god of fire. The women who had to die carried all their apparel and ornaments on their shoulders, and the men did the same. They were decorated to resemble the god of fire; they ascended the teocalli, walked round the sacrificial stone, and then descended and returned to the place where they were to be kept for the night. Each man had a rope tied round the middle of his body, which was held by his guards. At midnight the hair of the crown of the head of each was shaven off before the fire and kept for a relic, and the head itself was covered with a mixture of resin and hen’s feathers. After this the [277]victims burned their clothing, or gave it away to their keepers, and as the morning broke they were decorated with papers and led to the place of sacrifice with singing and dancing. These festivities went on till midday, when a priest of the temple, arrayed in the ornaments of the god Paynal, came down, passed before the victims, and then went up again. They were led up after him in the order in which they had to die. There was then a grand dance of the nobles, led by the king himself, each dancer wearing a high-crowned paper coronet, a kind of false nose of blue paper, earrings of turquoise mosaic, or of wood wrought with flowers, a blue, flowered jacket, and a mantle. Suspended from the neck of each was the figure of a dog made of paper and painted with flowers. In the right hand was carried a stick shaped like a chopping-knife, the lower half of which was painted red and the upper half white. In the left hand was carried a little paper bag of copal. The dance was begun on the top of the teocalli, and finished by the dancers descending and going four times round the courtyard of the temple, after which all entered the palace with the king. This dance took place only once in four years, and none but the king and his lords could take part in it. On this day the ears of all children born during the three preceding years were pierced with a bone awl, and the children themselves passed near or through the flames of a fire. There was a further ceremony of taking the children by the head and lifting them up, “to make them grow,” and from this the month took its name, yzcalli, meaning “growth.”

Ce itzcuintli.—Of this movable feast Sahagun says8:

“They said that the sign ce itzcuintli was the sign of fire, and on it they made a great feast to Xiuhtecutli, god of fire, to whom they offered copal incense and numbers of quails. They decked his image with paper of different kinds and many rich ornaments. Then the great made high celebration of the event in their houses. It was under this sign that they made election of the king and the consuls, which was celebrated in the fourteenth temple by banquets, dances, [278]and great liberality. It was at those feasts that war upon enemies was proclaimed.”

Sahagun states9 that the tzommolco was the temple of Xiuhtecutli. At the foot of the steps of this temple was a terrace to which several steps gave access, and upon this certain female slaves were occasionally sacrificed.

The Ixcocauhqui Tzommolco teohua appear to have been the especial priests of Xiuhtecutli.10

Sahagun MS.—The lower half of her face is black, daubed with rubber, and the upper half is red. She has a golden ear-plug. She wears a red garment and her hair is bound up in a fillet of cotton rags. On her back she wears the arrow-like device meiotli. Her overdress is “the colour of spring flowers.” In one hand she holds a feather staff, the paper covering of which is painted with the acute-angled figure which denotes cotton, and in the other she bears the shield with the device of the eagle’s foot. Sahagun says her priest had to keep in readiness for her festival red and black pigments, a robe, white sandals, and small shells.

Codex Borgia.—In this MS. she is represented with a yellow face and a yellow body. She wears a red tippet, white skirt, and a step-shaped nose-ornament, while her head is wrapped round with a red cloth edged with white shell disks, a feather decoration surmounting the cloth. [281]

Codex Vaticanus B.—Here she has a yellow face with two red cross-lines like the narrow black stroke on the face of the Fire-god.

Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—Her face is painted yellow, disposed in a number of fields, each containing a ring in the centre. She has the long tusk of a carnivorous beast. She wears golden pendants in nose and ears, possibly a symbol of the solar pictograph, and on her head she wears the water-and-fire symbol tlachinolli. She wears the maxtlatl of the men, to symbolize her warlike nature, with a death’s-head behind her girdle.

Codex Borbonicus.—The lower half of her face is painted black, and the upper red, like that of Xiuhtecutli. She wears a blue nose-plug, the decoration of the dead warriors. On her head she has the water-and-fire symbol.

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis regards Chantico as a male god, and states that:

“Chantico or Cuaxolotle presided over these thirteen signs and was lord of Chile, or of the yellow woman. He was the first who offered sacrifice after having eaten a fried fish; the smoke of which ascended to heaven, at which Tonacatecotle became incensed and pronounced a curse against him that he should be turned into a dog, which accordingly happened, and they named him on this account Chantico, which is another name for Miquitlantecotle. From this transgression the destruction of the world ensued. He was called Nine Dogs from the sign on which he was born.”

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A deals with Chantico in almost the same words:

“Chantico, they say, was the first who offered sacrifice after having eaten a fried fish, and that in consequence of the presumption of offering sacrifices without having fasted, Tonacatecutli became incensed and pronounced a curse against him that he should be changed into a dog, which is an animal of a very voracious nature; and accordingly they named him Nine Dogs.” [282]

This myth should be compared with that of Nata and Nena in the chapter on Cosmogony.

Chicunaui itzcuintli (“Nine Dog”).—Sahagun14 states that the lapidaries of Xochimilco who cut precious stones adored, among others, this goddess and made a feast to her on the above sign. They attributed to her the articles of feminine toilet, and ornamented her with golden earrings and a butterfly nose-plug of the same metal. At her festival four captives represented Chantico, Naualpilli,15 Macuilcalli,16 and Cinteotl, and were dressed in their insignia. Duran (who confounds Chantico with Tlazolteotl) states that at this feast these captives were cast into a fire exactly as at the xocohuetzi festival to Xiuhtecutli (q.v.), and that after the offering the priests mortified themselves by letting the resin from burning copal torches drop on their limbs.

The idol of Chantico was kept in close confinement in the dark Tlillan, and was not visible to the vulgar gaze. Sahagun states that she had a temple in Mexico called Tetlanman, and priests who lived in the Tetlanman Calmecac,17 and that the office of these priests, the tecamma teoua, was the furnishing of paint, feathers, and other necessaries for the feast of the goddess.